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Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Morning Meditation - Christmas every day of the year

Emmanuel refers to God with us, or the Messiah, the promised one who will save us all.

Human beings have a savior complex. Kids love Power Rangers and Super Heroes from Superman to Batman to Harry Potter to Luke Skywalker, and then, of course, there is Jesus, or Joseph Smith, or Mohammed, or Buddha.

Human beings look for saviors with special powers because they feel inadequate and defective themselves and they are frightened and lazy and want to be protected and taken care of. The psychoanalysts would say that we human beings "want to get our dependency needs met."

And yet every time a child is born we witness the miracle among us of another Emmanuel. We are amazed and rejoice that God has sent us another one of God's wonderful creations, one of God's sons or daughters. And love once again enters the world and is manifested in a whole new, unique and special way, full of hopes and dreams and marvelous potential.

If you are looking for Emmanel you don't have to recall history 2,000 years ago, although Jesus of Nazareth was a great guy, you can look in your family today, and here are some of my Emmanuels.

Peace Pilgrim said that she looked for the Divine Spark in everyone she meets and focuses on that. She would meet Emmanuel constantly. Supposing we treated everyone we interact with as Emmanuel? We would have Christmas every day of the year.

2 comments:

I love Peace Pilgrim; she said so much in her book that made perfect sense to me. One thing I recall her saying, is that people who are drawn to a particular faith need to be careful to use it as a stepping stone towards God, and not use it as a barrier between themselves and God's other children, nor to hold themselves aloft from other people. The world would be such a better place if more people heeded her advice.

I love your idea of seeing Emmanuels in one's own family. Every day I look at my kids and they fill me with hope. There are no human beings more filled with a desire to love and be loved than little children. They give it and receive it so easily. Little Emmanuels, indeed.